Wednesday, December 12, 2007

"I Saw You Looking at Agnosticism's Ass!"

Laptop crashed just as I started blogging again. And it's a MAC PRO. What are the odds of that? It's just stuck in boot-up, little wheel a'spinnin.

Even more insanely, it's Boot Camped. On a whim, before I brought the thing over to a Mac Repair joint (no Apple mothership in Ottawa), I booted into Windows -- which is how I'm updating right now.

Wow, Microsoft actually wins one.

I refuse to blog politically on a day when Congress is wasting time debating a resolution to declare Christmas is important.

You know, for a religion that survived centuries of persecution under the greatest Empire in existence, and then went on to convert billions of people over the following centuries, and is so entrenched as a moral framework in America that every Presidential candidate (hell, 99% of politicians in general) has to claim to be not just a follower but a devout follower ...

... Christianity's been acting kind of needy lately. Like, "crazy girlfriend who suddenly believes you're thinking about how to pack your shit in ways she won't notice and sneak it out to the car, and so perversely thinks the way to keep you from bolting is to demand you tell her she's super pretty every hour, which, ironically, is what actually prompts you into thinking about packing your shit, even though you weren't before but now ..." needy.

259 comments:

I've always wondered why a religion with a church on every corner is so freaked by a small percentage of the population just wishing to opt out. That's all us Atheists want, to be able to say "None of the above" without getting the stink eye or chased out of town because we'd rather sleep in on Sunday. This all or nothing attitude has got to go.

Seriously, though, I feel like I get smacked over the head all the time with Christianity of various flavours. It's oppressive some days. Now we have Christians squealing about being persecuted for their cult. Idiots. They should experience the persecution Christians endured before the Romans decided it was okay. Hell, let them experience the persecution inflicted upon non-Christians by Christians over the centuries.

Whatever computer works for you works for you. So if you like Mac or PC or Linux or abbacus, go with it.But unless no piece of hardware/software has ever failed or ever will, don't ever say this about your system: "it just works."Suck it!

You know, as a Christian, I've got to say, this is, uh, very nice of them. Completely unnecessary but, uh, very nice. I guess. Should I be happy about being endorsed by the US government? I'm having a hard time saying yes.

What the hell even prompted this? I... yeah. I'm so confused, right now. This is like the creepy, stalkerish guy at the office nominating a female co-worker for employee of the month, or something. "Thanks, I guess."

Even though this bit of legislation is patently absurd, it's still rather clever of the fundamentalists pushing it. A vote against it won't be seen as a rebuke of the bill's absurdity, but a rebuke of Christianity itself. Which means most likely NO one will vote against it. So all of these votes will be seen as validation of the fundamentalist view that the U.S. is a Christian nation that should be wholly governed by Christian leaders. See, even Democrats think so! Just one more step toward no longer basing a person's ability to hold office on legitimate qualifications, but solely on which candidate is more devout. And it will turn every beltway pundit into a Buckingham for an endless parade of Richards.

It's part of this whole War on Christmas thing and related to the idea that if some store clerk wishes you "Happy Holidays!" then it's the exact equivalent of their taking a crap directly into the Baby Jesus' mouth. 'Tis the season to be insanely petty.

I think what a lot of the people who are pissed about people not saying Merry Christmas are missing the point(s).

Christmas ceased to be a holiday solely about Jesus a long time ago. You don't go sit in Jesus' lap in the mall, and you sure don't get presents under the Jesus tree. Nevermind that Christmas is a co-opted pagan holiday or that Jesus was probably born some other time (September? April? I can't keep track, but not December)

The other main thrust is..stores want to make money. Obviously, this is why they exist. So rather than piss off or neglect large groups of their customers (Say, Jewish or Muslim customers, perhaps) they go with a more generic, all encompassing greeting. Nothing wrong there, no one is begrudging people their celebration of Christmas, they just aren't being exclusive in their well wishes.

On one hand, I'm disgusted (saving the outrage for more important matters). On the other, the full text of the resolution is hilarious. Congress "recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world" and "acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith" — the self-importance here is breathtaking.

Bravo for the nine who voted against it.

(Meanwhile, here in Wisconsin, our state legislature, having also run out of important things to do, is dealing with a resolution to refer to the state's official Christmas tree as a Christmas tree, instead of the current "holiday tree." A locution this Jew finds ludicrous — we're not the ones erecting Druidic religious symbols, leave us out of it.)

They've been a little bit jealous ever since that affair with Copernicus and Galileo...

But yeah, needy, but a bit more in that "You caught me lying about all that stuff, but you can forgive me for that, because I'm the best and the one and only and -- what do you mean there are others out there?" way.

Unfortunately, a lot of conservative Christians sincerely believe that being actually equal with all the other religions rather than More Equal, amounts to discrimination against them; not having state-sanctioned official school prayers is equivalent to promoting atheism. One guy sincerely informed me that Christians are in the same situation as Jews before the Holocaust. My pointing out the facts prove otherwise didn't change his view.

The problem is that the vocal chords of Christianity don't view themselves at the majority-- you seem to be an outsider, looking in, and they appear a united front.

But they're not, as each sect believes all the others to be fakers, not RTC (Real True Christians) like themselves. It's a Puritanical mentality... I'm not doing such a great job of describing it though, I'll leave that to my favorite blogger: